"It's not your fault" Max went to touch his shoulder, but he brushed her away, irritated by the contact.
"Don't fucking start with that shit alright? She's dead because of me."
He clasped his hands together under his chin
"Was he lying?" Max asked him
He looked at her, then chuckles sorrowfully, scratching the back of his neck
"Who Mark?" He shakes his head, pondering the idea
"I didn't think so. Not at first, when we first met. Even after Rachel…" he broke off, swallowing a lump in his throat "He promised it was a mistake. He said he couldn't stop destiny. I believed him." His leg was tapping away at 100 miles per hour, his body becoming more and more jittery. "I should have known my father had something to do with it. Mark would always side with my father. He said it was all a front because he needed to keep his trust."
Nathan stood up, nearing the cliff edge.
Max went to stand beside him, keeping a distance. She felt like he needed that.
"Then I saw his face, when…" Nathan struggled to speak, swallowing hard, "When I shot him. It was weird. I don't even know how to describe it. He spent so long photographing death, trying to capture it. It was like he…"
"…he finally found the answer he'd been looking for" Max finished his sentence for him, and their eyes locked onto each other.
He shook away the memory
"I don't know anymore" he told her honestly, looking into her face.
"Did you know he was going to die?" Max asked, both of them staring at each other. The breeze blowing Nathan's hair over his eyes.
He shook his head. "No"
"Nathan…" Max began, tentatively, nervously. She wasn't sure she even wanted to know.
"You said you saw me" She began, but she realised she didn't even know what she was going to ask. Should she ask if she dies? She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.
He looked deep into her eyes then, searching for something in her eyes, waiting for her to ask him.
Once again, she lost her bottle.
"I don't think he was lying." She began and this time it was her turn to swallow the lump in her throat. "When you left that room. He held the gun up at me. He didn't want to shoot me. I don't think he did anyway. He just wanted me to tell him how I felt. It was weird. It was like he was searching for answers. I… I've never felt so scared. That moment, when I thought I was going to die…" She found herself stumbling, but she refused to break eye contact with him. Even after the tears spilt from her eyes. "I.. I wanted him to kill me. I wanted to die. I just wanted the constant fear to end. I just wanted to stop feeling so insignificant, so alone. I wanted… I just wanted…"
Her words were cut off by his warm lips on hers. Gentle, urgent and needy. His hands held her face to his, and she lost herself in him, if only for a moment, before he pulled back away from her. His eyes open and searching hers, waiting for her to respond. Tears rolled silently down both of their faces.
"I'm sorry, I just…" he began
Max touched her lips, the taste of his blood on the tip of her tongue.
"I saw you. All of the time, before you even arrived at college. I kept seeing you up here, by the light house, tears down your freckled cheeks, the wind blowing your hair across your face, a wisp lingering over your lips, telling me how you feel insignificant. I've known for so long that you were important, but in my visions you never knew."
Max stood there, watching his brain trying to figure something out.
"When you turned up at Blackwell, I thought I'd finally lost it. I didn't know what was real and what was in my head anymore. I thought you would notice me. That you'd recognise me, because I'd seen you so many times, and I thought you'd seen me too, but it didn't work like that."
His eyes looked pained as he remembered it all.
"I kept getting de ja vu. I kept knowing what was going to happen but I was powerless to stop it. I knew you would stop me shooting Chloe, and I knew you would hate me and there was nothing I could do."
"I've seen your hurt face standing on this cliff for as long as I can remember, and now you're really here. I've waited so, so long to tell you that you're important. I practiced what I would say a thousand times." He laughed warmly then "and finally it's here, and I panicked because I realised this would be the last time. The last time I see you like this, and I don't know what will happen next. This is the last vision I see before the storm and I don't know if we can change anything anymore. For so long I thought that once I found you, once we got to this lighthouse, you would know what to do. You'd fix everything, but it's not that simple. Maybe we can't change anything, maybe we were never meant to. But you're still not insignificant. Not to me. I'm sorry."
Tears slid down his face as he looked at her.
"I'm sorry Nathan" she whispered, feeling useless. He thought she was going to be his hero. This whole time he had been waiting for her to save them, to save him and she had nothing.
They stared out as the grey clouds drew closer.
"What do we do now?" He asked her, his voice child-like.
She grabbed his hand. She didn't know what she was doing. This whole time she thought if she found the answers then everything would stop, but maybe Nathan was right. Maybe they were never supposed to stop the storm.
She grabbed his hand "We need to warn everyone"
